


The Making of a Family

by MantaCat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Avengers Family, Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, No Smut, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Natasha Romanov, Omega Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29447247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MantaCat/pseuds/MantaCat
Summary: When Spider-Man was injured during the airport battle, no one expected him to let out a keen; the cry only an unpresented pup in extreme distress could make.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 168





	The Making of a Family

**Author's Note:**

> In this story, the civil war airport battle happens when Peter is fourteen, rather than fifteen, and it's almost the end of his freshman year. I didn't expect this chapter to be as dialogue-heavy as it ended up being, honestly.

Fourteen year old Peter Parker had been Spider-Man for nearly six months, and could count the number of weeks left of his freshman year of high school on one hand when The Tony Stark showed up in his apartment.

Aunt May was thrilled. Peter had quit everything except Decathlon after he got his powers, at first in order to blend in, and later in order to be Spider-Man. His IEP team blamed it on PTSD, and he’d been diagnosed with sensory defensiveness after one really bad day when everything was dialed to eleven.

“I’m so, so proud of you,” May told him once Mr. Stark went out to his car and she was helping Peter throw together a suitcase, “I just wish you told me about the field trip _before_ it started.”

“I just— just didn’t want to get your hopes up,” Peter hedged, “In case I didn’t get it, y’know?”

“I’ll call the school,” May pulled up his bedsheets, located the pajama pants bunched up with them, and tossed the pants to Peter before straightening the sheets back out. The faint scent of _omega_ wafted through the air, left over from when Mr. Stark sat on his bed. Peter doubted it was strong enough for anyone but him to pick up on, and Aunt May, not having the Alpha-Omega gene, wouldn’t notice it regardless.

“Thanks, May,” Peter gave her a hug, as tight as he dared, and then he was off, down the apartment stairs and to the car where a non-ABO man apparently called Happy waited for him.

The next time Peter saw Mr. Stark was at an airport in Germany, facing off against Captain America. The battle was exciting and terrifying in equal measures, but Peter held his own well enough. He’d just tripped up Giant-Man with his webs when things went south, fast. The giant’s flailing hand hit him, Peter went flying, then crashing, and the world went black.

When Peter came to, Mr. Stark was kneeling over him and somewhere distant—muffled—Peter could hear the high, horrible _keen_ that could only be made by an immature A-O pup in an extreme threat state. Peter cast his eyes around, looking for the source, but all he could see passed Mr. Stark’s shoulder were the other adults, standing frozen and staring in his direction. Mr. Stark was saying something, but Peter couldn’t hear it over the rush in his ears and the muffled sound of the _keen_.

Then Captain America took a step towards them, mouth moving like he was saying something, and Mr. Stark turned and _snarled_. Then everyone was moving, and Peter couldn’t follow what was happening, but Mr. Stark stayed by his side.

Peter didn’t know when it happened, but he suddenly became aware he was wrapped in a shock blanket and sandwiched between Mr. Stark and Black Widow with someone in a medical uniform shining a bright light into his eyes. He flinched back, the light causing a sharp pain to shoot through his skull, and all at once sound came rushing in and he could hear the EMT speaking, hear other people speaking, farther away, could feel the soreness in his muscles.

“Can you tell me where you are right now, Spider-Man?” the woman asked.

“Air— airport,” Peter croaked, and his throat burned, feeling like he’d swallowed knives, although he couldn’t think why, “L— s-somewhere in Saxony, I—I can’t pronounce it.”

“That’s alright. Can you tell me if it’s morning or afternoon?”

“A—” Peter coughed, and Mr. Stark rubbed his back. Black Widow reached up and ran her hands through his sweaty bangs, and Peter realized first that she was also an omega, and second that he wasn’t wearing his mask, which caused him to flail and stutter. Mr. Stark’s hand moved up to the back of his neck and then he was scruffing Peter, and Peter fell limply into the man’s side.

* * *

Tony didn’t have anyone to blame but himself, he knew, for bringing a pup to a battle between enhanced soldiers. He just… hadn’t expected things to go that far, not really. In a sense they were lucky. Peter was the only one injured, and none of his physical injuries would last more than a week with the kid’s healing factor. But even that knowledge wasn’t enough to offset the guilt. _Keening_ wasn’t something a pup could just _do_ , it wasn’t a conscious choice, but a pup’s last defense, an instinctual cry for help that resonated with alphas and omegas — even _betas_ , who only had one A-O allele to work off of — resonated regardless of pack boundaries.

Tony wondered briefly what would have happened if he hadn’t snarled at Rogers. Would the alpha have stayed? Tony didn’t know, and there wasn’t any point in speculating. Rogers was gone with Barnes in the quinjet, and T’Challa after them. And Tony had let them go, prioritizing Peter. The rest had surrendered or been taken in, as was the case with the unconscious Scott Lang.

He needed to find and talk to the rogues, go after Rogers and Barnes, but the thought of leaving the pup made all his instincts scream. Tony was the one who dragged him out of his home, who coerced Peter despite the kid’s obvious reluctance to fly halfway across the planet and fight in a battle he wasn’t prepared for and had no reason to be in. Who nearly got him killed.

So he sent Rhodey to debrief in his place, while Happy drove Tony, Nat, and Peter to the hotel the two had been staying in and Vision stayed behind to deal with the clean-up.

“Don’t sleep yet, Pete,” Tony sighed, as the kid’s head began to nod against his shoulder, “we're almost there.”

“How old are you, Peter?” Nat asked from Peter’s other side. Her eyes darted to Tony, then back to the kid fast enough Tony wouldn’t have caught it if he hadn’t been looking.

“Fourteen,” Peter croaked, his voice shot from the strain of his keen, “I’ll be fif-fifteen in a few months.” Nat’s eyebrows shot up.

“I thought keening ended closer to twelve.” She was really good at not making it a question, especially since Tony had been wondering that himself.

“Th-thirteen for boys,” Peter corrected, with a blush.

“A late bloomer, then,” Nat acknowledged, then continued her light probing; “still, a little young for taking on the Avengers, don’t you think?” This time she kept her eyes on Peter, but Tony knew the question was directed more towards him. He should’ve known, with her history, that Nat wouldn’t like that Tony brought a pup to a fight, no matter how enhanced. Peter took the question differently. His eyes fell to the car floor, and he began idly picking at the leather seam of the seat.

“I’m so, so, sorry,” Peter’s horse voice came out closer to a whisper, “I didn’t mean to screw everything up, a-and—”

“You didn’t ‘screw up’ anything, kid,” Tony cut him off, and ran a hand down his face. Would this day never end? Thirty-six hours, Ross had said, and they were almost up. One way or the other, it would be over soon. “I shouldn’t have brought you in the first place.”

Hearing that, Peter just curled in on himself even more, and this time he got an unimpressed look from both Nat and Happy.

“What he means to say,” Nat ran her hand gently over Peter’s hair, “is that you were pulled into our mess, which doesn’t have anything to do with you, under-prepared and under-trained, but did the best you could.”

That wasn’t entirely true, given the Sokovia Accords meant Spider-Man had to either retire or risk breaking the law, but Happy was pulling up to the hotel and Tony had no interest in opening that can of worms walking through the lobby.

The three of them had just entered Peter’s hotel room and were still in the process of removing their jackets and shoes when FRIDAY sent an alert to Tony’s phone. Nat settled into the only chair in the room, so Tony sat on the bed with Peter, the kid leaning heavily on his shoulder, and set his phone on speaker.

“What you got for me, FRI?” He asked, and his AI began laying out evidence that Barnes was framed for the terrorist attacks by a man named Zemo. “Send all of it to Rhodey,” he sighed once they’d heard everything the AI had for them, “tell him to talk to the rogues; we need to know where Cap and Barnes ran off to. I’ll make him a window.” Nat’s attention snapped to Tony’s face and her eyes narrowed in a way which usually meant someone was going to die.

“After hearing all that, you’re still following Ross’ orders?” She snapped, and Tony felt his own temper flare up in answer.

“If those knotheads are going after Zemo, they’ll need backup,” Tony snapped, a flick of his fingers pulling up a holographic screen so he could begin locating where Cap’s team had been moved to and disable the security system there long enough for Rhodey to talk to them.

“Were we the ones who thought we were right, but were wrong, then?” Peter’s question was asked in a small, wounded voice that had Tony’s hand freezing in the air. Tony ran a hand through his hair, then went back to hacking.

“I— yeah, kid. I was wrong,” Tony admitted, unable to bring himself to look over and see what kind of face Peter was making. The kid sniffed, like he was about to start crying, and then he was pressing himself into Tony’s side, burying his face in Tony’s shirt, and his arm was wrapped around Peter’s shoulders before he could think better of it, holding the pup with one hand, the other stalling uselessly in front of his holoscreen.

“Not about everything,” Nat said, her voice soft but still loud in the otherwise silent room, “We do need to be held accountable. There has to be some kind of check on power. Ross just isn’t it.”

“Yeah,” the word came out as a sigh, and Tony went back to his hacking one-handed. Ross had taken Cap’s team to the Raft, of all places, but after a few minutes he’d managed to get Rhodey in. While they waited to hear back from him, Tony nudged Peter in the direction of the room’s shower.

“Get cleaned up, then you can get some actual sleep,” Tony bargained, and when he could hear the shower running, he turned to Nat to plan their next move.

“You stay here, watch the pup, I’ll fly out to back up Cap—”

“No.”

The refusal was strong and unexpected enough to derail Tony’s rambling. Nat’s scent was always carefully smothered by antiperspirant and deodorant, but even without that advantage, Tony could see she was only holding onto her calm veneer by a thread.

“ _You_ are the one who endangered the pup. _You_ are the one who put him in a situation that triggered his trauma response. _You_ are the one who is staying behind and taking responsibility. I’ll rendevu with Steve and provide backup. He’ll be more willing to accept it from me right now, anyway. I’ve got fewer injuries than you, and I’m still relatively fresh. You stay with Peter and run interference with Ross.”

Tony’s jaw hurt from how hard he was clenching it by the time she finished speaking, and his finger wagged uselessly at her while he tried to unhinge it so he could argue against her plan. The unhinging took long enough for Tony to admit that her’s was, in fact, the better plan, and with a heavy sigh he slumped back on the bed and his hand dropped to his lap.

“I’m pack omega,” he grouched at her, but there was no real heat in it. Nat began checking and re-stocking her gear between bites of energy bars, and Tony started a pot of cheap hotel-room coffee then splashed water on his face while he waited for it to brew. Peter finished his shower in under ten minutes and stumbled back into the bedroom like his feet were made of lead, hair dripping into his swollen black eye and night shirt. With a huff, Tony pulled the boy over and dried his hair with the nearest hand-towel. It was something, at least.

Then Nat was leaving, Happy driving her back to the airport even before Rhodey called in with the news that the two alphas were gunning for Siberia, and Tony pulled his holoscreen back up in order to re-engage the Raft’s security. Peter climbed onto the bed next to him and slouched against Tony’s side, watching as he worked.

“Go to sleep, pup,” Tony urged once he was finished.

“Can’t,” Peter whined, squirming against Tony’s side, “I still feel like, like, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or, for, I don’t know—”

Tony scruffed him again, cutting off the increasingly agitated pup.

“You need to settle,” Tony let his hand drift from the back of Peter’s neck to rub circles into his back. Between the concussion and coming out of a threat state, it was likely Peter wouldn’t sleep well, if at all. “C’mere,” he huffed and dragged the kid up until they were both leaning against the headboard, then he began rearranging the pillows and blankets until he’d made a crude nest. Peter watched him work with wide eyes, and Tony was reminded that the kid’s aunt was a normie, and Peter likely hadn’t been in a propper nest in years, if ever. That thought made something twinge in his chest, but now wasn’t the time to sift through the tangled mess of instincts and feelings. He nabbed his tablet from the nightstand and passed it to Peter, then pulled the pup against his side.

“I need to make some calls, so put that on silent and play some games or something. It’s going to be a long night.”

It was a very long night.

Tony spent over an hour arguing on the phone with Ross about the new evidence on Zemo, in order to get the kill order removed from Barnes. Nat sent him a message when she arrived in Siberia, but once she left the jet she was out of signal range. If it had been Tony, in his Ironman suit, he would’ve been able to stay online, and he vowed to upgrade everyone’s comm links as soon as possible so it wouldn’t happen again. Peter, who was privy to everything given that he was cuddled against Tony’s side and had enhanced hearing, bugged him until he pulled up the schematics for the comms on the tablet and the kid began pouring over them like he had something to prove.

While he waited to hear back from Nat on her mission and Peter played with upgrading the comms, Tony began making arrangements to get the team off the Raft and prepare for their trials. Get his legal team together, start drafting their case, all that fun stuff. He checked in with Vision, who was finishing up at the airport, and got him on a plane back to New York. Happy came back at some point during all of that, but beyond popping his head into the room and giving Tony a single nod of acknowledgement, the man had kept to himself in the adjacent room.

Peter dozed off around two that morning, but woke up when Nat called in to let Tony know she had Zemo and that Cap and Barnes were safely gone.

“ _Something else came up, though,_ ” Nat hedged, “ _Zemo’s goal was to break up the team. He’d managed to dig up some information he thought he could use to do that. He was expecting you, Tony. He’d gone digging for something he could use to hurt you. Now that we’ve taken him in, he’ll try to do that through Ross._ ”

“What was it?” Tony’s voice came out sharp, sharper than he intended, “What did he find?”

_“It would be best if I tell you in person.”_

“That incriminating, huh?” Bad enough for Nat to try and manipulate the story. Tony doubted she would straight-up lie to him, but she wasn’t above cherry-picking the truth. “I’ll hear it from Ross — or Zemo himself — sooner or later. If you want me to hear your version of events first, then spit it out.” He heard Nat sigh through the phone, but didn’t let himself feel guilty.

_“Remember that Hydra used brainwashing to force Barnes to comply with their orders.”_ Tony’s mind began putting pieces together, trying to find where she was going with this.

“This is something Barnes did as the Winter Soldier? Something to do with me—” Tony’s mind whirled, coming up with and discarding possibilities faster than he could voice, “—Strucker? No. Killian? Wait—Afghanistan?” None of those made sense.

_“I… worse,_ ” Nat said, and what followed was a story of his own parents assassination that had Tony snarling and trying to surge out of his nest and call his Ironman armor to him all at once. He was stopped by Peter, whose arm, which had draped over Tony to cuddle, pinned him down with inhuman strength, and then the pup began to purr. It wasn’t a content, happy sound though. It was the strained, desperately placating purr Tony remembered from his childhood, when his mother tried to end yet another fight between Tony and Howard.

“I’ll _kill_ him,” Tony growled, unable to completely stop fighting against Peter’s restraining arm, and the pup whined into his chest, “Where are they? Did Cap know? My god, _did he know!?_ ”

_“I— no. He didn’t,_ ” Tony scoffed, because that was obviously a lie, so apparently she was willing to lie to his face, _“Steve and I came across circumstantial evidence a while back that Hydra may have been involved with your parents’ accident, but couldn’t find anything solid to back it up. We should’ve told you we suspected Hydra earlier. I should have told you earlier. But neither of us knew Hydra used the Winter Soldier. I swear, Tony, we didn’t know. Steve passed me a burner before he left. You can call and ask him yourself once we’ve met up.”_

So Nat had known, had known at least some of it, and kept it from him. She was stalling, trying to buy time for the alphas to make their escape, and it only made Tony’s anger flare hotter. Peter let out another whine.

“Fine,” he spat, “we’ll meet at the compound.” Then he hung up on her. “Time to move, pup, get your stuff together, we leave in five.” He began aggressively dismantling what he could reach of the nest. Peter’s arm tightened against him one last time, and then the kid relented and let Tony up from the bed, his distressed purr stuttering off. Tony went and knocked on Happy’s door, waking the man, and then they were off, back to the airport and flying to New York. Tony had half a mind to leave the kid and Happy behind, to fly ahead in his suit, but that wouldn’t get Nat there any faster, and he needed that phone if he wanted to trace the call back to the alphas. A quiet voice in the back of his mind suggested the real reason was that he didn’t want to leave the pup, but Tony ignored that one.

Peter sat awkwardly close to him on the plane, listening in while Tony heard Ross’ version of events, which included demands that he immediately go after Rogers and Barnes, and accusations of failure. It felt like he was swallowing knives, refusing to immediately go after them to Ross, when that was exactly what Tony wanted to do. Peter resumed making that terrible distressed purr mid-call, and Tony had to move the phone to his other side, lean away, and word vomit something about white noise from the plane in order to throw Ross off.

After that came more calls to his legal and publicity teams, checking in with Pepper, choking down some food, and attempting a nap.

“You still smell angry,” Peter said when Tony gave up on resting. His voice sounded mostly recovered from keening, although his eye was still black and blue.

“What do you mean I _smell_ angry? You can’t smell emotions.”

“ _I_ can,” Peter insisted, “I told you, everything's dialed to eleven since I got my powers,” then, hesitantly, “are you really going to kill Mr. Barnes?” That had Tony deflating. The anger was still there, moving like lava through his veins, but the kid sounded so broken, so disillusioned with him, asking that, that the insistent drive to go after the alphas receded, just a bit.

“I’m not going to kill him,'' the _probably_ went unvoiced, but the look Peter gave him said the kid heard it anyway. “If I’d been there, next to him when I found out, then… I don't know. He killed my _mother_ , Pete.” He didn’t know what else to tell the kid, and a few minutes went by with nothing but the sound of the plane in flight and Happy’s snoring.

“When… when Ben— when Ben was—was—” Peter choked on his words, then tried again, “... the guy who did it. He’s in jail, now. Sometimes, sometimes I really hate him, too. Sometimes, I think about the pilot, the one who crashed the plane my parents were on, and I wish he was still alive so that— so that I’d have someone to punch, or, or something. Even though it wouldn’t change anything, y’know? It wouldn’t bring my parent’s back, or—or Ben, or make me miss them less than I do.”

“That’s about how I’m feeling, too, pup. Just minus caring about how it wouldn’t bring my mother back.”

“Oh,” Peter said, and the remainder of the flight passed in silence.

They reached the compound in New York after Nat, who’d taken the jet back. Tony debated sending the kid home before confronting Nat and calling Rogers, but it was still the middle of the night, East Coast time, and he didn’t feel like dealing with an upset aunt on top of everything else. So instead he pushed the pup in the direction of the guest rooms, and wasn’t particularly surprised when Peter dug his feet in and refused to be in any room Tony wasn’t, which meant the kid was with him when he met Nat in the team’s kitchen.

“Blame Hydra,” Nat said, phone nowhere in sight, “not Barnes.”

“I’ll blame whoever I feel like,” Tony snapped, glaring at Nat knowing she’d pick up on his ire at her, as well, then forgot why he bothered holding his tongue in the first place and spat: “You had no right! No right keeping that from me!”

“And you had no right bringing a pup to that fight!”

“Oh no, no you don’t. You don’t get to deflect. Not now. Not with this.” He kept his eyes on Nat, even while he shifted so that he was between her and the kid. Her eyes flashed with a moment of hurt, and Tony felt a brief rush of satisfaction, that he’d gotten to her with that.

“There wasn’t anything to tell! One off-hand comment from a Hydra agent about scientists and accidents. No files, no reports, not a single mention of Howard or Maria to go off of. Just a hunch. That was all it was.”

“Even then! You should’ve told me!”

“I made the wrong call.”

“Damn right, you did. Give me the phone.” Then he could kick her out. Good riddens to all the traitors.

“We’ve all made mistakes, Tony.” Tony opened his mouth to let out a scathing comment about Natasha and her long list of mistakes when Peter’s hand brushed his arm and he startled, having forgotten the kid was there.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter stepped forward, so he was no longer behind Tony, but between him and Nat. He looked unmoored, his eyes too wide and his shoulders curled in. “I think…” the kid took a deep breath, “I think you should hold off on that call.”

“Okay, not what I was expecting,” The words were out before Tony could filter them, “but I’ll bite. _Why_ do you want me to wait?”

“Because— because you’re tired, and hurt, and angry, and lashing out, and— and— if you do, then you’re giving Zemo exactly what he wanted.”

“This is more important than that, Pete,” the words came out sharper than Tony expected, and the kid flinched from him, like he was expecting a blow, and Tony felt like shit. He ran a hand down his face and looked around the kitchen where a number of stools and chairs sat, unused, because none of them got that far into the room before they started fighting. The pup was too young to be watching his heroes try and tear each other to pieces. There was no way he’d admit it, not now, but Nat had been right about that.

“Then it’s important enough to— to be at a hundred percent for, not, not half-assing it when the only reason you’re still standing is ‘cause of that coffee you had on the plane. Mr. Ross’ time limit’s over now, right? Yeah, yeah, so it won’t matter if you wait until tomorrow, or next week, or whenever, to call.” They were clearly excuses. Every excuse Peter could think of, most likely. Tony had taken on missions in much worse shape and come out fine, but as he looked at Peter’s hopeful face, he decided he could put off the call long enough to get the kid home and out of the crossfire. He owed the kid at least that much.

“Fine,” he said, “fine. I’ll wait until tomorrow. Now it’s past time for super-pups to sleep. Hup-to.”

Getting Peter to bed was harder than Tony expected. The pup still refused to be away from Tony. Nat called it a trauma bond, which FRIDAY explained wouldn’t dissolve until Peter was either back with his own pack or properly settled. Since Tony wasn’t about to let a kid he’d known for less than two days into his private rooms, they ended up in the common room pulling cushions and pillows off couches. Nat came in with her arms loaded with actual sleeping pillows and blankets, and Tony swallowed back a hiss when she began helping build the nest.

He didn’t hold back the grumble when the traitor climbed into the nest with him and Peter, but then the kid started up his terrible, placating purr, and Tony backed off. He could tolerate one more night with Nat if it meant the pup finally calmed down and slept. He slipped his arm behind Peter’s shoulders, tugging the pup into his chest and nudged Peter’s head until it was tucked properly under his chin, nose to his scent glands. Nat scooted closer to them until she was cuddled up to Peter’s other side, running her hand comfortingly up and down his arm, and then she began to purr — properly purr — warm and comforting, and Peter melted into him, the kid’s own purr relaxing into a more peaceful register. It took a few tries for Tony to get his own purr going, he wasn’t exactly in the mood for it, but after a while his chest was rumbling to match the other two. He didn’t notice when sleep crept up on him, blissfully free of nightmares.


End file.
